A North Korean official has been executed with a flame-thrower, South Korean media has reported, amid a crackdown on loyalists of Kim Jong-un's purged uncle.
As many as 11 senior party officials with close ties to Jang Song-taek have apparently recently been executed or sent to political prison camps.
Mr Jang was publicly purged in December and executed after being found guilty of corruption and activities that ran counter to the policies of the Workers' Party of Korea. The regime has shut down the department within the Workers' Party that Mr Jang previously headed.
O Sang-hon, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Security was "executed by flame-thrower," a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
Mr O was executed because he had followed Mr Jang's instructions to turn the ministry into a personal security division to help safeguard his business dealings, the Chosun Ilbo reported.
The report could not immediately be confirmed, although previous executions have suggested that the North Korean leadership can be inventive when it comes to ridding itself of anyone who has fallen out of favour. |